Rifondazione • Denmark's Red-Greens Old world pressures on Mexico's rulers Members of parliament from Mexico's ruling PRI have asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to protest to the Danish, government, after a group of Danish MPs [from the Red Green Alliance] wrote to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, asking him whether the Mexican government wished to solve the armed conflict in Chiapas or not.
The MPs urged Zedillo to approve the proposals for constitutional reform in the field of indigenous culture and rights developed by the Concorde and Pacification Commission (COCOPA). PRI members of parliament called this an "inadmissible act" . Senator Adamor Rodriguez Lozano said that the Danish MPs' letter could not be tolerated, since it attacked the sovereignty of Mexico, and insulted the country's executive and legislative powers. "Under no circumstances, as a senator and as a Mexican," he said, can I accept that a group of legislators from other countries come and challenge popular sovereignty, and give us lessons in democracy."
One week later, 120 Italian MPs, representing all political groups, wrote to President Zedillo asking him "to lift his veto on the constitutional reform on the rights and dignity of the indigenous communities, as proposed by COCOPA.*
According to a statement issued by the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC - Rifondazione) on 6 February, COCOPA "is an expression of the Federal Parliament, and includes representatives of all Mexico's political parties" COCOPA's proposals were formulated "after the peace accords signed between the Mexican government and the EZLN (Zapatistas) in February 1996.
The initiative was presented in the Italian Chamber of Deputies by representatives of Rifondazione. Source: La Jornada, 30 January and 7 February